Abstract: The paper presents the newly developed approach to the sea bottom recognition and identification, which uses inverse filtering techniques to extract bottom scattering properties from a single-beam echosounder signal. Using simple physical model, the developed inverting procedure allows to remove the influence of pulse shape, beam pattern and model geometry upon the backscattered echo. 11permits to obtain the seabed impulse response which is directly related to the function describing the angular dependence of bottom reverberation coefficient. Various direct and iterative inverse methods can be applied to the mentioned problem. The results of testing the method using echoes from several bottom types are in agreement with the predictions of theoretical models. Moreover, the proposed bottom classification procedure uses simple parameters of deconvolved function and the obtained classification results are better than those of other bottom identification methods of normal incidence.